Sammy Baloji (Democratic Republic of the Congo) | A collaboration with Villa Medici (Rome)

Sammy Baloji was born in 1978 in Lubumbashi, in the mineral-rich Katanga province of Democratic Republic of Congo. He studied Computer and Information Sciences and Communication at the University of Lubumbashi. With a borrowed camera, he began photographing scenes as sources for his cartoons. He soon enrolled in photography courses in DRC, and continued with photography and video at Ecole Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, in Strasbourg, France, receiving formal training in photography from Simon Mukunday and Marie- Françoise Plissart. Raised in Lubumbashi, Baloji was sensitized to the colonial history and the postcolonial decline of the once-prosperous mining region of DRC, which Chinese and Western companies exploit today. Colliding reality and representation, his multi-media  installations expose past tensions and present entanglements. He mines the archive, traces social history in architecture and landscape, and probes the body as site of memory and witness to operations of power.

Baloji has had solo exhibitions at: Framer|Framed, Amsterdam, Musée du quai Branly, Paris; MuZee, Oostende, Belgium; Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren; and Museum for African Art, New York. The solo show Sammy Baloji & Filip De Boeck — Urban Now: City Life in     Congo opened in May 2016 at WIELS, Contemporary Art Center Brussels, traveled to Open Society Foundation, New York, The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada; and Galerias Municipais/EGEAC in Lisbon. Sammy Baloji featured in documenta 14, Kassel, Germany, and Athens, Greece, directed by Adam Szymczyk, and curated by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung. In In 2016 the 56th International Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, and  “Personne  et  les  autres”, curated by Katrina Gregos, the “All the World’s Future’s” curated by Okwui Enwezor.

M’Barek Bouhchichi | A collaboration with Civitella Ranieri

Born in 1975, Akka, Morocco, he lives and works in Tahanaout next to Marrakech where he teaches art. Using painting, sculpture, drawing or even video, M’barek Bouhchichi develops his work through a tentative language grounded on the exploration of the limits between our internal discourse and its extension towards the outer world, the actual, the other. He places his works at the crossroad between the aesthetic and the social, exploring associated fields as possibilities for self-definition.

Recently, his work has been exhibited as a solo show Les mains noires (Kulte, Rabat, Morocco, 2016), as collectiv exhibition Documents bilingues (MUCEM, Marseille, France, 2017), as well as Le Maroc contemporain (Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, France, 2014), Between walls (Le 18, Marrakech, Morocco, 2017).

Amelia Umuhire (Rwanda) | A collaboration with Villa Romana (Florence)

Amelia Umuhire is a Rwandan-German filmmaker based in Berlin. Born in Kigali in 1991, Umuhire had her directorial debut in 2015 with the web series Polyglot, currently available for viewing on YouTube. She has since won numerous awards, including Best German Web Series, for that work and has gone on to produce several short films. Her work has to date been shown at MOCA Los Angeles, MCA Chicago, Tribeca Film Festival, Smithsonian African American Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam and many more. A recent English-language interview with Umuhire about her work can be found on MCA Chicago’s website here.

Nari Ward | A collaboration with Galleria Continua

Nari Ward (b. 1963, St. Andrew, Jamaica; lives and works in New York) is known for his sculptural installations composed of discarded material found and collected in his neighborhood. He has repurposed objects such as baby strollers, shopping carts, bottles, doors, television sets, cash registers and shoelaces, among other materials. Ward re-contextualizes these found objects in thought-provoking juxtapositions that create complex, metaphorical meanings to confront social and political issues surrounding race, poverty, and consumer culture. He intentionally leaves the meaning of his work open, allowing the viewer to provide his or her own interpretation.

Solo exhibitions of his work have been organized at the Institute  of  Contemporary  Art, Boston (2017); Socrates Sculpture Park, New York (2017); The  Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia (2016); Pérez Art Museum Miami (2015); Savannah  College  of  Art  and  Design Museum of Art, Savannah, GA (2015); Louisiana State University Museum of Art, Baton Rouge, LA (2014); The Fabric Workshop and  Museum, Philadelphia (2011); Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, MA (2011); Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (2002); and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN (2001, 2000).